I'm a young American woman in Milan...and you're not. I go to La Scala a lot...and you don't.

June 2007

June 30, 2007

Since OC readers were so receptive to the Milan fashion that was offered in the last post, OC had found herself out-&-about this past month, with camera at the ready to snap more of the Milan street-style that makes this city so righteous. Righteously stylish.

Above: Stylist and customer at one of Milan's famous salons Coppola, where models and wannabe-models converge. And yeah, that cute stylist was smiling at me...so what of it?

Above: this is really casual, ubiquitous Milan street-style for the summer: ballet flats and capris...like the nyc equivalent of flip-flops, shorts, and a t-shirt.

Above: afghan throw as sweater-jacket, and an 80s, pink satin rollersk8ing jacket come together for one big hot mess.

Above: We like the mix of street (athletic kicks + sporty jeans) and elegance...and of course, the Vuitton Speedles bag makes almost anything look sweet (unless it's a grody knock-off).

Above: flood-warning!

Above: omg it's the year 1997 and the nokia brick phone is *da bomb*. He's so old-skool it hurts.

Above: we're a fan of every kind of trench.

Above: Prada gardening kit from Corso Como 10. Flipping insane. Like those who can splurge on this accessory would do something as bourgeois as their own gardening...

Above: Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? Lets hope that Paris bought something good at 10 Corso Como so she can discard those *denim hot-pant overalls* eeeewww. (disclaimer: it's not really Paris or Britney, you lamers.)

Above: Tough love. We'll leave you with a "fashion-don't" for inspiration. Denim jodhpurs? With suspenders? And flip-flops? Yahoo Serious reincarnated as Huckleberry Finn. On crack.

This past Tuesday marked the official street release of the Grateful Dead Symphony no. 6 (although since May, it was available online for download), and already local pot dealers are feeling the impact, as deadheads are running amok in the streets, hoarding all the stash so they can toke up, tune in, and freak out.

Let's hope that Gelb wasn't a deadhead in his former life, and keeps this invitation out of his plan for "Operation MET Facelift&Botox&Restylane" (although Levine looks like he could give it a good go, and Andrea Gruber would definitely have to be a soloist.) OH SNAP! j/k we <3 Gruber.

A sample can be found here of very generic sounding, big brass, banal orchestral muzak.

He attacked the "anti-Russia" Cannes Film Festival ("Alexandra", his controversial film on Chechnya with Galina Vishnevskaya [Rostropovich's widow] premiered there but the director chose to stay home), and he also explained how Italy had shaped his views on art ("I cannot imagine life without neorealismo films, without Fellini, without the operas of Verdi and Donizetti").

But Italy broke his heart, he explained, a few years ago when la Scala decided not to stage Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, directed by Sokurov and conducted by Rostropovich:

"Rostropovich received a letter saying that the project had been dropped. I was appalled, it was unheard of, saying no to Rostropovich. A terrible mistake by la Scala".

Sir Simon, you have led the Berliner Philharmoniker for nearkly five years. How is your German now?

(in German:) Perfect. Like Thomas Mann's.

You have been interested in musical education work for a while?

That began already more than twenty five years ago, in Birmingham. In England it was hard not to see that there is less and less music taught in schools. I had an awesome percussionist at the time, and she said, 'We've got to play for deaf kids." That led me to extraordinary experiences. I once asked a group of deaf children, "Tell me, what did you hear?" And they said, "Everything!" When we played Messiaen and I explained something about the birds, a deaf child said, "OK, what does the butterfly sound like then?" That was the most poetic question I've ever heard.

(...)

I believe that rhythm plays a primary role in evolution. Everything comes from the heartbeat -- the pulse.

(...)

What are you most proud of after these five years?

To be still alive! No, just kidding. I confess, it isn't appropriate for me to talk about pride. I am realistic. I am pleased, a lot...even if not everyone immediately agreed with each and every new idea.

(...)

There are no olympic gold or silver medals to win...

Did you think it was going to be quicker, the orchestra's development?

To form a bond between an orchestra and a conductor is extremely lengthy process. The first five years are a transition period. Same thing for the others directors of this orchestra. Things develop very slowly.

(...)

Orchestras move as fast as tectonic plates. That's how they retain what's so special about them... I was surprised to see that the older musicians here are often more radical than the younger ones...I just throw little seeds around and wait to see whether something grows out of them or not. It's like old-fashioned agriculture.

Any conflicts?

The new music question can be a delicate one. On the one hand there are many musicians who engage themselves for contemporary music. Others have to be convinced that this is a worthy endeavor. In the 1920s under Furtwaengler new music was perfectly normal here. (...)We are obligated as an institution to develop ourselves...it's a process. One cannot do only 19th century repertoire.

Have you changed in Berlin?

One changes physically, I'd say, if one comes here. For me it's the first time I live abroad. This orchestra needs to be handled completely different from any other. Those who think they can bend the will of the Berliner make fools of themselves. It's like driving a sports car: you'll crash. There's enough energy here for several nuclear explosions. These musicians must be aligned in the correct direction.

What do you hope to achieve in the next five years in Berlin?

I hope that the music gives the answer. Just the music.

Do you find this question unfair?

No. I do not believe that there can be a genuine answer. It is like asking, "What do you wish for your children?" Besides health, luck, passion, what can you say? Maybe this would be the correct answer.

Do you feel paternal towards the Berliner Philharmoniker?

Occasionally. One must worry quite a lot. I had to get accustomed to the fact that fifty-two of them, the majority, are younger than I am. But I like that if one has trouble, the others here help, and they give a hand. As soon as one is accepted there is an unbelievable feeling of loyalty. That creates a society -- in the sense of Schiller.

Some pieces I do not understand. For example Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis". Even if I will try to the end of my days. Sometimes I think, this music makes me want to run away crying. But I know people who think it's very comforting.

(English translation operachic.typepad.com, please credit)

Opera Chic just imagined ol' Wilhelm "Big Willy" Furtwaengler going all like, "we're all one big happy family here, ja?" And then, you know, you screw something up and it's off to the camps.

Last week, during the sometimes-painful Robert Carsen's production of Candide, Opera Chic tried to fight the boredom by doing many things: by leafing through a copy of Japanese Vogue, peeling an orange, and thinking about how brilliant, no, how BRILLIANT Carsen is when he doesn't try to do political theatre which, fo' reals, is so not his cup of tea. Carsen's genius for the dramatic vision and for detail that will break your heart is what makes him one of the (very, very few) greatest opera directors working today, a true man of vision in a business of so many charlatans that only know how to replace their lack of ideas with cheap stunts.

Carsen's Iphigénie En Tauride (a production seen last October in Chicago, it closes tonight in San Francisco) is an example of that. And how emotionally devastating an experience must be to watch Susan Graham on that stark black stage, as naked as Iphigenie's sorrow (Bay Area Reporter reviewhere, San Francisco Sentinel review here, the Examiner's here).

OC was cleaning-out her image directories and came across a few treasures from the past few years of hoarding files. Does anyone remember the trashy crapulence of the 2004 Wagner Rallye? How could you ever forget?

While you were busy sobbing over the final episode of Friends, Bush's reelection, and Martha Stewart's jail sentence, twenty colorful kamikaze drivers from the backwaters of Germany’s most insular towns piled into ten cars to participate in a Wagner-inspired rally. With special cars modified to accommodate loudspeakers blasting Wagner’s operas, the participants sped through 10 cities in Germany's Ruhr region on a Wagner-centric mission, with team names such as Tannhäuser, Rienzi, Götterdämmerung, and Fliegender Holländer.

The race was creation of German agent-provocateur director Christoph Schlingensief (pictured above, as well as image on the right), and was staged to drum-up publicity for his 2004 production of Wagner's final opera, Parsifal, at the Bayreuth Festival (a fantastic piece of p00p, which you can read about here in Alex Ross’s sobering, stomach-turning review…Poor Alex was traumatized, and we would be, too) (nsfw gallery from the 2004 Parsifal here). Grand prize was ticket to the production. Ummmm. Thanks Monty, but I’m going to take what's behind curtain #2 instead!

The only hawtess that the Wagner Rallye provided were the design-friendly rally kit decals, which we hate to say -- were brilliant -- as we <3 this kind of culture-jamming. Wading through Schlingensief’s piles of WWII-romanticizing crap at least had one benefit. You can download the three sets of .eps files below, which contain the decals on the three jpegs pasted below.

Tomorrow super-twin powers BBC Radio 3 + Norman Lebrecht will discuss some of those delightful blights of the classical music industry's bid for crossover that have plagued the consumers' set lists, by grilling some of the masterminds behind the contracts, and uncovering the reasons to why they were ever produced.

Many of the selections will be taken from Carissimo Norman(o)'s latest book, "Maestros, Masterpieces and Madness: The Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record Industry", specifically the awesome and entertaining addendum of the "20 Worst Recordings Ever Made"...which kept OC equally entertained and equally in awe of Uncle Normy's unwavering insights.

Titled, "Is This A Record?", the program(me) airs tomorrow on Radio 3 at 12:15 GMT...and lowhighlights will include Barbra Streisand, Neil Sedaka, and Pavarotti's duet with Frank Sinatra.

A quick note to the Juilliard designer team: brevity is awesome but if you need to shorten "Figaro" use a different combination of letters, because as it is on your website now (see below), "Moza" for "Mozart" is cool, but "Figaro" became a very widely used crude, four-letter Italian anatomical term (that would have amused that h0rndog Da Ponte a lot, but still...)

Sometime during the transatlantic flight Senor Suavity seems to have transformed into a complete hayseed who writes as if he's pinning corsages with each compliment and who inserts himself into the nougat center of every review. Perhaps the pale enamel of Croce's Mother Superior austerity inhibited Macaulay during his first American sojourns, but now that she's vacated the scene to her mink ranch in Rhode Island, he's free to express every quivering sentiment and glandular effusion he once stored below deck, lathering and slathering his prose with palmfuls of the "simple creamy English charm" that was the blight and despair of Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited. Worse, the cream has curdled, and the charm is so unctuous it seems to be begging for applause.

An awesome article from Cincinnati's City Beat perpetuates our endless fascination with all things Teddy Tahu Rhodes, where we get details of his Maori-inspired tattoo, and a confession that he's 'totally flummoxed by the clamor about his good looks and charismatic stage presence'. C'mon Teddy...if you got it, flaunt it! Ain’t no shame in the game.

Tonight those lucky patrons of the Cincinnati Opera get to see Rhodes star as Guglielmo in la prima of Mozart's Così fan tutte, with direction set in 1930s Hollywood. Rhodes, heart made of gold, waxes chivalric on da Ponte's libretto:

"It's actually quite dark," Rhodes admits. "The idea of tricking the other's partner doesn't sit well now. I'd have great difficulty if the music wasn't so great and it wasn't so much fun."

O teddy…you could be improvisationally singing the libretto in Icelandic for all we care. in bocca al lupo tonight!

Triple yay for maestro Hans Werner Henze whose Phaedra (one of our favorite opera myths, I mean, it's Paisiello's masterpiece and without Paisiello, after all, the inventor of like everything, we'd have no Elisir, no Don Pasquale, no Sonnambula, etc etc) Henze's Phaedra we were saying will debut on September 6 at Berlin's Staatsoper Unter Den Linden, our dear Madge Kozena rawking teh haus (the opera is made even more precious by the fact that the maestro has written the second act after the terrible illness that struck him in 2005 and left him in a coma for two months).

We're so excited we're actually considering a trip to Germany to catch that. Or to Bruxelles.

Alagna said he won't be able to make it to Milan to see Angela in Traviata at la Scala next week because he's busy working (k).

He repeated that the opposition against him at la Scala for Aida last December was "political":

it's too long to explain those political reasons, i can only say it was a new direction a la
scala for this opening and the old direction made everything to spoil the evening
(...) tthe loggionisti were not against me i think they know me very well i have nothing with them

About his lawsuit with la Scala and GM Stephane Lissner:

je suis en procès avec la scala... nous verrons bien

About his future choices:

j'aimerais bien chanter la périchole d'offenbach
(...)i would like to sing in russian, the language is beautiful, so warm, i need time to study or maybe to find a very good teacher, nasdarovie

There was time for the downright bizarre.

I change parfume each day

His plans for the future:

i will sing chenier in monte-carlo next year, at the Met Peter Gelb changed with butterfly
because it's a new production and the chenier was made by Volpe, the old manager

Maestro Placido Domingo and Katherine Jenkins have presented this morning in Athens their concert, that will take place tomorrow night in the Panathinaikon Stadium of Athens: organized by Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) and dedicated to the kids of Darfur, Sudan. Domingo & Jenkins will be accompanied by ERT State Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Eugene Kohn. Also expected to make an appearance alongside Domingo is Greek vocalist Fotini Darra.

We'd make fun of this, but it's all for a good cause, so we can't. More powah to Maestro Domingo, La Jenkins & Fotini.

The La Scala soccer team, a kick-a$$ mostly comprised of AV and technical stagehands won the Opera House & Theatre Italian Cup for the first time in their twenty years history. The squads are compiled from all the italian theaters, and the La Scala team has a median age of about 25-years-old: in the picture, the goal-scoring forward Marco Tolva, a grip. Congratulations to all involved.

June 25, 2007

Palazzo Mauro de André was built outside of downtown Ravenna in 1990 for big sports events and conventions, and is capable of holding 3,800 spectators. Probably 3,799 showed-up last night in Ravenna for Riccardo Muti and the Wiener Philharmoniker in a weird Austria + Spain flavored program, Schubert + Mozart and Ravel's Spanish Rhapsody and De Falla's Sombrero, like eating Wiener Schnitzel washed down with some gazpacho made by a French guy or something. ne way...

The crowd packing into the balloon-topped structure with such enthusiasm that the concerto started 20 minutes late to accommodate the swamped at-call windows, the claustrophobic line to get in (it was like being wedged into a slightly more elegant NYC Times Square Countdown-to-New-Years-crowd), and the process to find seats.

Muti was in high spirits, dressed in frac, much more comfortable on stage than I had seen him in NYC, or in Ravenna for Don Pasquale, and much happier than he was when a OC friend saw him in Florence last month for Gluck's Orfeo e Euridice -- after 30 years of special relationship with the snarky Viennese musicians, he really works SO well with his Wieners. sry. You can't even imagine all the wiener jokes that you have been spared by second edits.

First up was Schubert's Die Zauberharfe Overture D 644, a piece of flowery Apollinean beauty (there's a killer Fritz Lehmann version out on DG) and a gorgeous, rich sound swelling from the orchestra. Three omg omg females filled-in the ranks of the boys club and their sausage-fest: two strings, and one on harp. What is this blasphemy?!

Next was Mozart's Haffner Symphony (KV385), which is still giving OC little goose-bumps in all the right places. Muti -- the most extraordinarily intuitive conductor alive -- is just brilliant light and gorgeous force when he conducts Mozart -- he just gets it, in a unique manner -- he just gets it right with his scary, unique bond with the composer who was "charged with such boundlessness", in Muti's words, making the works seem as light as wind -- un soave zeffiretto, fo'reals. I swear Mozart talks to him at night when he's in his Moroccan-style bed with a tower of pillows at his feet, and whispers conducting pointers in his ear. And last night when the andante began, after a few bars you really thought the entire stage was about to lift itself up and levitate, fly away toward the basketball arena's dome. It's unreal his Mozart. Muti breaks your heart with Mozart.

Then time for intermission, which OC drifted through, still under the influence of Muti's Haffner. After the break, that mix of unabashed brilliance and utter vulgarity, Ravel's Spanish Rhapsody, which we are not huge fans, but the Wiener flaunted superb technique and wonderful mastery of tempi changes, dynamics, and style.

The last work on the program was the super-banal Manuel de Falla's El sombrero de tres picos...which was so boring that I stopped listening at some point and started thinking about making a chess set or something out of wood or clay or cork that would include chess piece in the likeness of all the great maestri, including debate over who would be the King & Queen (does Plácido or Fischer-Dieskau count?), all the way down to the pawns. Anyway, the concert ended in an enthusiastic climax, shouts of bravi and bravo for both maestro and Wiener.

Then after a bunch of ovations (half of the floor gave him a standing ovation), old bankers mooning the parts of the audience that didn't join in, along with bejeweled old ladies waving big foam hands with "MUTI RAWRKS" written on the palm.

Muti then spoke to the audience in soft Italian. He said that it's been a peculiar program, and with the set list beginning with Schubert, he would choose Johann Strauss as an encore, because Schubert opened the door for him. And then he was like 'here is the Wiener and we are going to play Strauss for you'. At that point, he turned around to face his orchestra, but an old lady's voice broke loose in the silence with a strained 'bravo'. Muti didn't turn around to confront the audience, but like an impatient father, he dropped his hand to his side and motioned for her diminuendo. omg so hawt. like emperor ming with an execution order or something.

So the Wiener played Johann Strauss's jr overture to Indigo And The 40 Thieves laying thick their famous rubato like Sacher Torte chocolate, and OC can count herself among the special who have heard the VPO's rubato live. Of course, it was breathtaking. They were like, "We're the Wiener. Strauss is what we do. Deal with it."

More standing ovations, applause, and then everyone disbanded to go eat some agnolini. yum yum yum. At the end of the night, it was clear that we were all -\(º_o)/-wned by MAESTRO MUTI!

Full review, pictures, inside gawssip and much more coming tomorrow. Now Opera Chic is tired, overfed, drunk with that unique creamy sound of the VPO strings and their to-die-for rubato, and she needs to rest on Pratesi linens.

June 24, 2007

The luglio/agusto issue of L'uomo Vogue -- Italy only...with the quirky Schnabel Family in pajamas -- by Julian's hawt wife Olatz (may I introduce you to my hawt wife?) -- on the cover -- gave us early inspiration for the Fall fashions of Prada, Jil Sander, Acquascutum, and Lanvin, as well as a glimpse of two of our opera and ballet sweet<3s.

In the feature "Private People and Their Own Style" we’re treated to some of the most kicka$$ fashion photographer portraits of a random assortment of international trendsetters. Two of the profiles, Juan Diego Flórez and Roberto Bolle, caught our attention. Well, at least visual attention – because that font. just. that font.

Juan Diego Flórez is photographed by Bryan Adams lol (yes *that* Bryan "Summer of '69" Adams) caught in the act of seducing, well…his wife? Who is decidedly *not* looking remarkably like his wife (don’t get us wrong: we love it).

Roberto Bolle appears alone, an elegantly fit vampire, dressed in Armani and Valentino, photographed by the awesome Deborah Turbeville. We like how she downplayed his, um, assets and dressed him so elegantly instead of playing the 'you look better in a thong' card.

June 23, 2007

Imagine, if you will, Traviata set during the Prohibition, where Violetta Valéry and Alfredo Germont fanno un brindisi (Libiam nè lieti calici) not with bottles of vintage Krug, but with flutes of sparkling bottled water.

IMAGINE NO MOAR!!

Thanks to the brilliant minds behind Vöslauer, "Austria's favourite mineral water", we have two commercial spots featuring Anna Netrebko shilling their swill. (ok, well, it's not really swill at all, but we just couldn’t resist the consonance.)

We're glad that mainstream brands are starting to pick-up on the star power behind opera (aside from Montblanc and Rolex) and if it brings us closer to la Netrebko, we're all for it! (omg we're practically bf4e&e we even drink the same water!!) We hope this paves the way to the American advertising market, and although we like Jennifer Aniston and her new stint as Glaceau SmartWater's new face, we think Anna could give her a good run.

You can watch the two promo spots on the Vöslauer website here, or one on youtube. btw, Vöslauer's company headquarters in Bad Vöslau, which is a little bit crappier than neighboring town Good Vöslau.

Opera Chic freely admits her status of hawpless fangirl when it comes to maestro Leo Nucci, the best Verdi baritone working now (sorry Maestro Bruson we *heart* you too!), and possibly the best Italian opera baritone, too (he kills in Puccini and Rossini, too).

He's too much of a gentleman, but whenever immigration agents at passport control ask him his profession, he should simply answer "I show'em how it's done". Maestro Nucci is now showing how it's done in Verona, at the beautiful Arena, singing in the warm night Summer air his Nabucco, the season's opening, last night. Director Denis Krief explained that Nucci, who enters the stage riding an actual horse (the beauty of open-air opera, the unfortunate animal would probably stink up an actual theatre's stage so bad it isn't even funnay) took daily lessons to learn how to ride the horse.

We're not sure about the pajamas-like costumes, kind of apocalyptic Jedi-bathrobe-chic dyed in desaturated ghreys and brawns, but the Denis Krief production of the Verdi blockbuster seems to be pretty cool, Franco Zeffirelli's anathema notwithstanding.